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Lord Fagin
Lord Fagin was the name used by the famed "Pirate King" of the Fringe. It is known that there have been at least two different beings to have used the name of Fagin up to the present time, and perhaps more, as the name has been in use for a very long time. The true name of the original Lord Fagin is not known. The first reports of Fagin date back to the year 2417, when a man calling himself Lord Fagin seized power in Freewheeling on Tomin Kora and built a massive underground fortress there. However, as interstellar transport at this time was tremendously difficult, his reach did not stretch beyond that planet for some time. However, once Fagin obtained OS Drive technology, he founded Fagin's Riches on Tomin Kora in the year 2593, turning that remote, desolate world into a center of commerce and underworld activity from which he was able to influence the other worlds of the Fringe, primarily through use of the Smuggler's Guild and Pirate's Guild and the notorious Elite Guard. (Note: While it would appear that the original Lord Fagin could not have been the same one who founded Fagin's Riches in 2593, nearly two centuries after the name Fagin first appeared on Tomin Kora, it is unknown what race the original Fagin was. As some races are far more long-lived than human-stock, it is possible they were one and the same man; or there may have been several successive Lord Fagins during that time. The details remain unknown.) Deep beneath the city of Freewheeling on Tomin Kora, Fagin constructed a massive palace to serve as his impregnable fortress. Surrounded by a series of ingenious booby traps and protected by the Elite Guard, Fagin's palace was for decades a sore temptation to foolhardy treasure hunters who hoped to steal some of the vast riches of the Pirate King. Periodically, stories surfaced on Tomin Kora of some adventurer who had ventured beneath the city to find the palace, only to never be heard from again. The original Lord Fagin, however, did not survive to see the end of the empire he had constructed. One of his associates, Thomas VanMahr, discovered that Fagin had been carrying on an affair with his wife, an affair that had produced a son, Leopold VanMahr, whom Thomas had believed was his own. Thomas VanMahr then conspired to kill Lord Fagin and his faithless wife, and assumed Fagin's identity and title with no one on Tomin Kora having been the wiser. Thus he became the second Lord Fagin, and ruled with a ruthless and bloody hand for many years. Under the second Lord Fagin, Fagin's Riches developed many deadly weapons, both technological and biological, and his hold on power in the Fringe was very strong for many years. However, when Leopold VanMahr became Guildmaster of the Smuggler's Guild, he began to get too close to some of Fagin's secrets. Ultimately, Leopold learned the truth of Lord Fagin's identity; that the man he had believed to be his father, Thomas VanMahr, had been living for years as the pirate king, having killed his true father and his mother. Leopold was ultimately killed in an effort to confront Fagin. However, many of Leopold's friends, including his former smuggler crew aboard the Courser and Orandius Jaxx and Remy LeBeau, banded together to take down Lord Fagin and avenge their friend. Knowing that this band of crusaders knew too much about him for his comfort, Fagin conspired to have them killed by allowing them to gain access to his legendary palace, only to set off a series of explosives to destroy the palace and bury everyone in it. Fagin escaped aboard his luxury liner, the Galore. He proceeded to rebuild and strengthen his organization, with a new majordomo, Grim, appointed to strengthen Fagin's riches. Grim reorganized the Smuggler's Guild under new Guildmaster John Falkenberg, who was sent in search of a new, secure location for a new and better palace for Lord Fagin. This Falkenberg found on the rocky planetoid of Odysseus, perched precariously between the twin black holes, Scylla and Charybdis. For a time, Fagin's new palace on Odysseus served him well, and the Pirate King resumed his role as virtual ruler of the Fringe. He helped orchestrate the establishment of a corrupt new government on Demaria, which plunged that planet into a Civil War. And his scientists developed a new weapon, the Legion Virus, although it would be long before they released it upon an unsuspecting public. But the crusaders who had attacked his first palace survived its destruction, and Grim developed doubts about Falkenberg's loyalty; meanwhile, the Pirate's Guild descended into disorder with the resignation of its Guildmaster, Valor. Eventually, Orandius Jaxx and Snowmist Shadowstalker snuck aboard the Galore, destroying it and killing Grim and many of Fagin's top lieutenants. Fagin himself was safe in his secret palace on Odysseus, but Jaxx would not rest until he had destroyed the Pirate King. Jaxx managed to plant explosives on the surface of Odysseus that slightly destabilized the planetoid's orbit, pushing it too close to one of the black holes, and causing it to be sucked beyond the event horizon. Fagin, however, was not on Odysseus at the time. He and his new majordomo, Dimitri Volstov, made it aboard the Sanctuary colony vessel, where they had secretly prepared a hidden lair. As the Kretonians invaded, destroying what was left of Fagin's empire on Tomin Kora, Lord Fagin and a small cadre of the Elite Guard survived for months, hidden and out of sight aboard the colony vessel. It was there that the Legion Virus was first released, but in this move Fagin miscalculated, and many of his enemies, including Orandius Jaxx and John Falkenberg, were aboard Sanctuary and began to hunt for the Pirate King's lair. Ultimately, the Vanguard found it, and after breaching its defenses, brought Lord Fagin and Volstov out as prisoners. The Sanctuary Senate was uncertain what to do with such legendary criminals, so they decided to put Fagin and Volstov into cryogenic freeze until the colony vessel could return to known space, where they would be handed over for trial. However, when the Thul known as Ancient Shog wanted humanoid bodies in exchange for his aid in returning Sanctuary to normal space, the vindictive Falkenberg made a suggestion to the Senate: give him the frozen forms of Fagin and Volstov. This idea carried by a narrow vote, and Fagin was given to the Thul for their experiments, thus remaining behind in Hiverspace when the colony vessel jumped home. Even this, however, was not the end of Fagin. The Thul experimented on him and Volstov, but Fagin, somehow, came to an understanding with them and gained his freedom, after a fashion. He built a new empire for himself in Hiverspace, centering around Comorro Station. He recruited a new Elite Guard from among the Hekayti. And he planned revenge against those who had left him behind. In 3002, the VES Minerva under Colonel David Ransom Porter returned to Hiverspace and attempted to find the secret to unlocking the Multiverse Nexus. Fagin was waiting, however, and captured two members of the Minerva crew, placing them in specially rigged cryotubes that would explode if anyone attempted to thaw out their occupants without the proper disarming code. Fagin promised to deliver the code after the Minerva crew arranged for his return to normalspace. However, in the process it was revealed just what a toll the Thul experiments had taken on him: Lord Fagin, the Pirate King, was nothing more than a brain and spinal column floating in some sort of nutrient liquid inside a massive tank that floated on an antigrav sled. He was still alive and aware, and could communicate his thoughts through some sort of cybernetic device attached to the tank. Ultimately, Fagin secured the means to return to normal space and released the Minerva crewmembers. He returned home, flanked by a few of his Hekayti Elite Guards, and immediately went to Tomin Kora, where Boss Cabrerra had constructed the new city of Shadowheart. Fagin knew that his old, trusted majordomo, Grim, had been resurrected by the Kamir and was waiting for him on Tomin Kora, now acting as Cabrerra's majordomo. When Fagin arrived at Cabrerra's headquarters, he demanded that the man who had condemned him to become a Thul experiment, John Falkenberg, be brought before him. When Falkenberg was brought before him, Fagin ordered Grim to execute the pirate. However, Grim instead turned and destroyed Fagin himself and his guards, using the awesome powers he had inherited from the Kamir. Grim explained to Falkenberg that Fagin, in his final, Thul-altered form, would not be an appropriate leader for a new criminal empire on Tomin Kora. He then offered Falkenberg a deal: help him destroy the last of his enemies, and the name of Lord Fagin would be Falkenberg's. He would be the new pirate king, and Grim and Boss Cabrerra both would serve him. At first, Falkenberg was taken in by this rouse, and accepted. Thus, rumors of Fagin's return spread, and one might consider this to be the start of a Third Lord Fagin's reign. But soon it became clear that Grim only wanted the specter of a Lord Fagin to distract people from the real danger he posed as the Kamir's agent of revenge. Falkenberg had no real power of his own, and was only a puppet Fagin for Grim's amusement. When Falkenberg and his crew fled Tomin Kora, any pretense of him being a new Lord Fagin ceased, and as far as anyone knows, there has been no Lord Fagin since. Until late 3005, that is, when the corpse of Volari was thrown from the gondola of a blimp over Shadowheart, and a loudspeaker voice proclaimed the return of Lord Fagin -- who sounded suspiciously like Colin Neidermeyer. Fagin, Lord